


if we're gonna do anything we might as well just fuck

by girlwiththeradishearrings



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cheating, F/F, Frottage, Mild Smut, basically screw rhaegar, is the alternate title of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1696295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwiththeradishearrings/pseuds/girlwiththeradishearrings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyanna Stark is an artist and takes Rhaegar's art history class. Elia, who does art appraisal, suspects them of having an affair and goes to confront Lyanna about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. confrontation

“My husband is cheating on me.” The affirmation is said to an empty kitchen and echoes across vacant countertops. Elia’s mouth tastes of shit. She has never said it before, has only thought it at elusive, fleeting instances over the past three months. It was all suspect at that point, but there is a sense of finality in hearing it audibly, as she leans disheveled in her bathrobe and slippers against the counter, that serves as verification. The words cling to her tongue and she hates the bitter taste of them.

Her lips curl and purse with distaste as they suck on that single word: _cheat_. How repulsive it sounds. That word is for tests and teenage relationships, she thinks, it is not for respectable marriages.

“My husband is having an affair,” she experiments, narrowing her eyes. Tapping the side of her coffee mug idly—ignoring the jarring click of her wedding ring against the ceramic—Elia decides _affair_ sounds much more delicate, less vulgar. It is what she will tell herself at odd intervals of the day just as a reminder of what an absolute cock Rhaegar is.

“My cock of a husband is having an affair and I don’t care. _I don’t care_.” It’s a half-truth. No matter how adamantly she denies it, Elia does care. She cares an awful lot, even if she doesn’t realize it. She cares so much that her hands shake and hot coffee slips over the lip of the mug and dribbles along her fingers in searing rivulets—glazing the facets of her diamond ring.

Swearing, Elia begins to lick at the coffee as it dries in sticky streaks along her skin. The phone rings.

She picks up the call on the fourth ring. It’s Ashara. “Hey,” her friend’s voice is a whisper on the other end of the line. She must be at work. “I think I found out who it is.”

Elia, instead of throwing the coffee mug in a fit like she wants to, sets the drink down on the countertop, breathing measuredly out her nose. “Who?”

“Are you sure you want to know? I’m not even positive—“

“Give me her name.”

Ashara’s light sigh into the phone jumps through the static. “I think it’s a student… someone taking his class maybe? I managed to get ahold of a register for his advanced art history course—the double period. But—I’m not entirely sure, I mean… I think it’s her, but—“

“Please Ashara, I just need a name, that’s all.” Elia voice is soft and low, as close to a plea as possible. Her mother used to say Martells never begged for anything.

She can hear Ashara stalling, the muffled click of a pen surfacing in the background.

“It’s Lyanna Stark.”

Elia waits a couple of heartbeats, kneading her lips between her teeth, trying to keep the sound thrumming up from her chest restrained. She thanks Ashara, cuts her friend’s reply off with the “END” button and sets the phone down.

As a child, in moments of great anxiety, Elia would bite the insides of her cheeks, gnawing off chucks of skin to cope with stress or anger. Her brother Doran used to tell her she was too passive. He said that it wasn’t healthy letting all her emotions build up inside. Allowing a little emotion to bleed through once in awhile was good, he’d counseled.

There is a kind of eerie calm at the way she feels her anger swell, how impassive her face is when the part of her that cares (cares about her marriage, cares about Rhaegar) tenses and palpitates in pain.

The rest of her morning is spent picking up shattered ceramic and watching paper towels swallow up coffee pools on the floor.

 

* * *

 

The first direct glimpse Elia has of the girl is, inadvertently, of her chest. She’s wearing some filthy rag tank top, cut thinly on the straps and sagging down the front, allowing an ample view of her cleavage. The front of the tank advertises a cheeky burlesque show with a silhouetted dancer propped up on her hinds, smoking a cigarette, the smoke from which illustrates the name and hours of the establishment.

The girl rests her temple against the half-opened door and blinks sleepily down at the unexpected visitor. The stoop is considerably lower than the doorframe, giving both a disproportional view of the other.

“Um, yeah?” The girl mumbles as she squints against the harassment of sunlight, slumping in the shadow of her doorway.

“Yes, hello.” Elia takes a polite step back. “I work for Sunspear Studios and came to inquire about a gallery opening. Your name was on our list of applicants.” Elia raps the first page of her clipboard with a knuckle to indicate said list. “Although, I can come back if you’re busy.”

She half hopes the girl will send her away. Unfortunate circumstances have brought Elia to her studio and she was not eager to begin what would surely be an unpleasant visit. To say the very least, they would not be discussing _just_ the gallery opening.

The painter’s eyes widen, her brow tensing in exasperation. Her gaze flitters to the clipboard pressed to Elia’s chest, the logo of the agency embossed on the back. “No shit?” She licks her lip—toying with the silver ring looped through—and tosses a glance over her shoulder into the dim studio. “I’m Lyanna.” She doesn’t offer a hand.

“Elia.”

Lyanna examines Elia, blinking lazily, running her grey gaze intently over her form. A grin carves its way onto her mouth, doing so after her teeth slip their catch on her bottom lip.

The grin substitutes for acceptance.

The artist in question shifts her weight and nudges the door open with her shoulder before slouching back into the studio. Elia is left on the stoop to peer quizzically into the apartment, staring after the girl’s milk-white thighs as they slip beyond the crop of sunlight staining the floor.

Elia steps inside, her heels clicking softly across the concrete.

“It’s a wreck, I know. Just try to not look at anything too closely. That’s what I do. Helps me avoid responsibility. Want something to drink?” Inquires the murky figure rustling around in the dark. There’s an extravagant flourish of movement and Elia’s reply is swallowed by the sound of grating metal. A wall of light saturates the room.

Elia blinks rapidly, hoping to dissipate the white spots cluttering her vision. The morning sun interrupts the dim, sleep-ridden studio; swapping the drowsy dark with crisp light.

“Do you have coffee?” Elia holds her clipboard tighter to her body.

The artist is reaching up to tie the sash of floor-to-ceiling curtains bordering the eastern wall; wearing her rag top and little else, Elia soon notices. As the girl leans up to yank the curtains into subordination, she observes the tank wander up Lyanna’s torso, crawling up to her waist. The movement exposes a broad and illustrious expanse of black ink unfurling up her back and ribs, although she cannot tell what of.

Elia’s propriety betrays her and she succumbs to curiosity.

Lyanna Stark’s backside is graced with dark lace threaded across her skin like a spider’s web. The milky curvature of her ass is generous, and Elia has very little time to appreciate the girl’s other endowments before her mind reverts to thoughts of a more sinister nature. She pictures Rhaegar’s hands groping such places and a blush works its way unannounced onto Elia’s cheeks, leeching traitorously up her neck.

Elia has a certain respect for beautiful things. She’s made it her profession to cull the exquisite from the dull. But thinking of this artisan creature within the expanse of her husband’s arms, draped against his form is… _difficult_ to evaluate with a neutral perspective.

Lyanna does not shy from Elia’s gaze (surely she realized her lack of garments?), instead she smiles broadly, shoving off the wall, curtains quivering on their metal rings in her wake. “Sorry, love. I should have specified. There’s tap water or wine. My milk’s about a week past its expiration date.”

“What kind of wine?” Elia inquires, stepping assuredly into the studio as she shakes off the shadows.

“Red. My brother’s friend Howland works a vineyard. They bring me over a spare crate once in awhile. It’s kind of… well. It’s, uh. Backyard bottling. Nothing fancy.” Lyanna digs her fingers into her sloppy bun, fisting and un-fisting the knot of dark hair. She passes Elia on her way to the kitchen. “Uh, make yourself at home. My paintings are being put in a Uni exhibition—the good stuff anyways…. Most of my recent stuff is propped against the back. Although, I recommend caution—charcoal stains are a ripe bitch to get out.”

The faint tinkling of glassware and the banging of cupboards follow Elia as she migrates into the studio, her heels clinking sharply against the concrete.

The apartment itself is simple. It’s what some might call “modern,” although Elia thinks it sloppy. Save for a few grubby couches shoved along the studio’s perimeter, the space is bereft of furniture; occupied instead by drop cloths or art easels.

Falling back on instinct, Elia reverts to professionalism. If she is going to con this girl into telling her about the affair she must convincingly play her part. Art appraisal and technique analysis was a process she had trained her eyes to exercise expertly, and wouldn’t prove a challenge.

Elia walks to the far wall, fingers wriggling into a pair of gloves, the latex snapping tightly against the skin of her forearms. Her shadow stretches up the western wall, trailing over hanging canvases.

Once the gloves fully coat her hands, Elia tenderly paws through the young student’s craft… and is taken aback by what she finds.

Under any other circumstance, she would have booked the Stark girl for a gallery in King’s Landing—maybe the Reach if seasonal shows didn’t create scheduling conflicts. She was _good_. Her use of gradation and highlighting created striking contrast along the bodies she portrayed. The charcoal seemed to breathe and thrive on the canvass where her fingers had stroked, caressing the black dust into submission. Elia felt tempted to touch the figures, graze her hands along the strips of ebony blended with curving tones of alabaster… all melding masterfully. Even the unfinished pieces were unique in their vulgarity; black strokes going off the paper, hurried lashes of dust smeared into violent, tortured body positions.

Elia hadn’t appraised such a refined charcoal collection since the Dothrakki Era nigh a decade ago. It had been a long time since the medium had resurfaced in mainstream galleries. There had been a few hopefuls, but each artist seemed to simply replicate their predecessors.

What was more interesting still were the subjects of Lyanna’s work.

Nearly every piece featured someone—mostly women—in various stages of dress. Some were in the process of stripping articles of clothing: unbuttoned blouses, shirts clutched against chests, bra clasps being unlatched, pants slipping down thighs. There were close-ups of hands latching onto expanses of skin, lips grazing the column of a throat, breasts clad in bite marks. Most were dressed in nothing at all. The models simply tossed their bare bodies onto the sheets of an unmade bed, or leaned self-consciously against a wall. Others were posed revealing much or very little of themselves. Some languid with their poses, as if they were captured in their most comfortable state; some strict with their posture, ridged and acutely aware of their elbows and knees.

Elia studies each piece with a reserved, objective gaze. (As if the artist responsible for such work were not fucking her husband. Like the hands that eased the brunt bark scrapes into jawlines and collarbones hadn’t burrowed their way into Rhaegar skin and felt him the way only a wife should.) Lyanna deserved no less despite her adulterous undertakings. 

“Here,” a voice starts from behind. “Sorry, I couldn’t find any wine glasses.” Lyanna, still lacking in the way of clothes, hands Elia a chipped mug. The _Stark Manufacturing_ logo is imprinted on the side in light grey.

“Your family?” Elia indicates the company’s emblem.

Lyanna snorts. Elia raises a brow, watching the other girl take a sip of wine. “Yeah. _Family_. What a concept.”

“I take it you’re not on the best of terms?”

“Nah.” Lyanna pauses, rethinking. “I mean…. It’s just my dad. My brothers are alright.”

Leafing through more portraits, Elia begins to categorize them in her head. Divides the work into sections based on light reception and the level of detail. She envisions the portraits presented in a downtown gallery, mounted on the walls, shocking the attendees with their brazen depictions. Elia doubts nothing so erotic has been presented in years.

Elia purses her mouth along the lip of the mug and takes a gracious swig, letting the bitterness marinate her palette.

“Your work is exquisite. I think many galleries would be very pleased to showcase some of your pieces.”

“Se—Seriously? Jesus.” Elia manages a small smile, yet her insides feel like dry rot.

Lyanna drags her fingers through the bun sagging at her nape. The hem of her tank top inches up her waist once more. At the closer proximity Elia can see a flourish of wilting flowers—roses—crawling up her hip before disappearing beneath the shirt. She tries to imagine what the rest of the tattoos would look like, how the contrast of Lyanna’s pale skin might set off the black ink.

“How long does each piece take?”

“Most of the portraits take around an hour or two for the base layer and the touch ups can take a couple of days, depending on how I feel.”

Standing from her crouch, Elia steps around Lyanna, avoiding her eyes, and meanders into the center of the studio, observing the Stark girl’s workspace. The clicking of Elia’s heels are muffled by the musty drop cloths spread like a patchwork across the floor. She has a mattress strewn on the ground, sans bedframe, and the sheets are twisted at the end of the bed. An easel is set up some paces away, bowls and take-out cartons scattered around the feet of the stool.

This must be where she lays her models, Elia muses, face heating.

_Is this where she fucked Rhaegar as well?_

Curiosity tangles with her conscience. It would be so painfully simple to ask.

Elia stands in the living room of the girl screwing her husband and drinks stale wine from a chipped mug. The tips of her toes brush the crumpled drop cloth beneath her and she feels exhilarated, filthy, and frayed. Rhaegar’s deceit had cut her to the quick, flayed her sympathy and compassion to bloody, bitty shreds. She had told herself marriage was unpredictable, most were, but that they would endure. Yet, holding together the shards of their matrimonial sanctity was bordering cataclysmic. They were two distinct personalities that reigned sovereign from each other.

In short: they were failing. Failing like a weak kidney saturated in vodka and told to choke it down. God damn it, were they fucking up.

But Elia had held herself under the impression they were going to come out… _alright_ (Elia always used “alright” to describe the future of their marriage, despite the connotations being: “pleasing,” “satisfactory,” and “nice,” none of which could possibly be applied to the state of their shoddy union).

Neither acknowledged the chasm surging through their lives. He made the coffee and she started the cars, he unloaded the dishwasher and she did the laundry. They hosted parties and faked themselves into a box labeling them a success to all their friends and family. The box was pretty and packaged to perfection, withholding the dissatisfaction, the counterfeit ideal. It made them a paradigm of what the classic _Pottery Barn_ life entailed. And for awhile it was fine. Managable, even.

But then the girl happened.

Not in so little words, no. But Rhaegar carried the evidence. After class he’d come home with the stench of intoxication, high on his desire. Betraying himself only when his eyes found purchase across the galleries they both frequented. They lingered on her. Came away with the effects of her still reflected on his face. Parted lips, eyes scattered to his peripherals where she slouched, wine glass in hand, chatting up some bank accountant.

Elia had tried to remember her face from those nights, snatches of the girl from hurried, sly glances.

In her mind’s eye, Elia sees faded bits of her, blurred like deteriorating pigment on a polaroid. She sees flashes of teeth and a tongue snaking between a languid mouth, lips unfurled like a child’s—bewildered, intrigued at what she was being told. She sees the lazy hunch of her back—so vulpine the way her shoulders wrapped inward, predatory in their set, like she was bidding her time, waiting for a catch—but the lethargy of her posture was contradicted by the ferocity in her eyes. Elia often watched the other girl studying her surroundings from beneath heavy lashes.

Maybe Elia should have felt threatened by the Stark child, but instead she felt curiosity twinge brightly at the back of her mind. She supposes the part of her that wants to study beautiful things is drawn to the girl—the artist.

She’s a purveyor of art and collects and manages pretty things. Lyanna was just one more pretty thing to be examined.

 _Who are you? Why are you doing this?_ She wants to spit at the girl, to create more broken ceramic by flinging the mug to the floor, watching as it shatters, mimicking the structure of Elia’s life like some cruel joke. Elia knows somehow the girl shouldn’t be blamed, no matter how much she loathes the realization. Rhaegar was at fault, if anything. It doesn’t matter how garish a picture she paints of Lyanna: the seductress, tempting and youthful, irresistible and cruel, smiling at the pain she’s causing… because it would always be Rhaegar’s choice. How nice it would be to say he was innocent in this charade, he was fooled, tricked, like some snake bending in on itself at the hands of its charmer. As Elia swallows this truth, she pities her husband; for being weak, for not being content with what she had given him.

Lyanna slinks back into Elia’s line of sight. She picks up something at her easel, fiddling. She twists her torso in order to peek at Elia, “Do you mind?” Her voice muffled by the cigarette perched between her lips.

Elia shakes her head.

“You want one?”

“No thank you,” she sounds quiet, shy. Like a closet filled with old clothes and mothballs.

Lyanna studies Elia as she frisks the lighter a couple of times before hovering the flame under the tip of the cigarette. Her cheeks hallow as she sucks in. There is smeared mascara speckled under her eyes and Lyanna stares at Elia as the elder woman stares at her. Elia thinks she has never been so aware of another person’s presence before. The air on her skin feels cool and each of her blinks feel measured.

Lyanna leans, not quite sitting, on the stool where she works. Smoke hazes her features, steadily dipping from her mouth in a string of grey coils. Elia rubs her thumb along the clipboard at her side, eyeing the silver bit of metal slung through Lyanna’s bottom lip, examining how it responds to the puckering of her lips against the fag.

“You married?” The Stark girl inquires, folding her right arm to her chest and under her other arm (Elia pointedly ignores the way her cleavage pours out from beneath the thin tank top). She smokes with her left hand, periodically taking a slow drag, batting her lashes intently down at Elia. Smoke blooms from her nostrils and Lyanna stares Elia down as if from the barrel of a gun.

“Hm,” Elia nods, a dark curl springing lose from behind her ear. “Maybe you know him, he’s a professor at King’s.”

“Eh?” Lyanna looks amused. “Never would have pegged you to go for the educator-sort.”

Elia has given up whatever façade she’d been cultivating. Her gaze is emphatic and all pretense of anonymity has dissolved. She wants Lyanna to know she is ‘aware’.

“He teaches advanced art history. Rhaegar?” Elia supplies, waiting for Lyanna’s recognition to surface beneath the smirk she so casually wore. “But I suppose you would know him as—“

“ _Prof Targ_? Are you fucking with me?” The words are accentuated by the pops of smoke bubbling from Lyanna’s mouth. She gives a bawdy bark of laughter, shoving the heel of her free palm into her eye. “Oh fuck me, Targ is your husband?”

Elia could have done without the laughter—she might have found it insulting if the situation didn’t already indorse a certain level of absurdity. However, progress was being made and Lyanna was showing signs of comprehension. Elia thought it best to deal with the confession as quickly as possible, like ripping off a scab or yanking out a loose tooth, just shut your eyes and pull.

“Did you know he was married?” Elia questions.

Lyanna crosses her ankles, dragging her heel along the straight of her shin. “I noticed the ring, yeah…” She shrugs.

“I just… I want closure. I want to deal with this mess as unambiguously as I can, if you could just help me with that I would be grateful. I didn’t come here to make you feel guilty or try and exact revenge, I just want this to be over with.”

Lyanna eyebrow quirks sardonically, yet the grin remains. “I’m not confident I understand you…”

“Elia. Martell.” She offers aggressively, gaze unwavering.

“Right—Elia. I’m not sure…”

“I would just like a brief timeline, that’s all. I’d like to know when it started, or what went wrong. I obviously didn’t sense anything, but I suppose that’s the point. When did it start? The beginning of the semester?”

“Umm,” Lyanna chuckles nervously, ash drifting onto her shirt from the butt of the cigarette. “I still don’t…. What exactly are you asking me?”

“How long have you been sleeping with my husband?” Elia utters. Her voice is even and stricken with a kind of clinical undertone. She doesn’t want to be here anymore, she wants to leave this dank studio and vomit on the side of the road like any other sane person; the wine has churned her stomach. Under the circumstance, she thinks she’s doing very well, yet the urge to start throwing things has begun pressuring her muscles into knots. Illness drags at the back of her throat, toying with her gag reflex.

Lyanna—instead of looking stricken or flushing with mortification at the news being relayed to her—goes through an evolution of emotions as Elia’s gaze stays trained on her.

At first, there is confusion. Her eyebrows perk up and her mouth forms a slack circle. This shifts into vulnerability. She is uncertain of herself, frowning. The final transition comes full circle into amusement.

Lyanna attempts to hold back her laughter, if only for propriety’s sake—the situation is wholly uncomfortable, after all. Yet, Elia senses the Stark girl is not used to withholding her emotions, and the laughter upends from her in sharp coughs. She folds herself off the stool, staggering. The seat clatters back onto the floor, unsteady at the redistribution of weight.

“I’m sorry, love. Terribly, I am.” Lyanna hiccoughs, cigarette quaking in her slender fingers as she restrains more giggles. “But you’re speaking nonsense. _Sleep with Targ?_ You’ve got to be having the fattest laugh. Please, tell me you’re joking…?”

Elia has gone stone-faced. She thinks about just leaving, just walking out. Why are the simplest things simultaneously the hardest? “Are you denying it, then?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, darling, but he’s not exactly my _type_ ,” Lyanna offers evasively, stepping closer.

“Come again?” Rhaegar was gorgeous, he was everyone’s bloody ‘type’.

“I’ve thought about it rough with him a couple of times, I won’t deny _that_. I mean, the long hair’s tempting—what else am I supposed to do in class? It’s art history, not exactly creaming myself in anticipation for that double period—I’m sure even the boys have their own fantasies, fuck it, half the staff as well. Targ’s fit, sure, but… as I said: _not my type_.”

Lyanna has gained something as she speaks to Elia, an upper hand, a confidence. Her body language is astute, undaunted (the opposite of what Elia expected). She gives the impression of an older, more mature child tricking someone younger, less experienced. A smirk is in place, yet it’s masqueraded as a smile. She is relishing Elia’s anger and pain. As if her marriage failing is farcical, worthy of laughter.

“How so?” Elia chooses to question, tilting her head to inspect the artist.

Lyanna peers down at Elia. Their difference in height never occurred to Elia before, and Lyanna was quite leggy. Her grey eyes narrow, but not in a threatening manner, more like consideration. Elia can count the specks of blue in her irises and she sees the sliver of light glinting off Lyanna’s lip ring.

“I only fuck girls.” The Stark girl’s cheeks crater and she exhales a breath of smoke, purposefully, into Elia’s face.

“You’re…. You’re a lesbian?”

“Born and bred, love.” Lyanna bites into her smirk, heavy-lidded gaze cherishing the way Elia’s cheeks blush, suddenly noticing the light dusting of freckles that sweep along her nose. “Dad hates me for it. Wanted me to marry a family man, do the homemaking sort of thing, have babies. Nevermind that I’d been thinking about kissing girls since I was six.” Lyanna flicks some dark strands of hair from her face, gaze drifting, reminiscent, around the studio.

“Fuck. _Fuck_.” Elia beings a mantra. “I’m so sorry. _Fuck._ I should leave.”

“So you’re not even going to give me a bid then?”

“Our major studios are booked until the spring season is finished,” Elia quotes what her brother has told her and the other studio analysts. “Anyway, I don’t think Sunspear has any locations appropriate for your work. They’d all have to be small galleries—not even our own—just the ones we rent for novice collections. I couldn’t see your work go there, it’d kill me.”

Lyanna nods reverently, yet her gaze cuts bitter to Elia’s face. “Right, so. You come to my flat, accuse me of screwing your husband and then won’t do me the courtesy of offering me a bid? That’s brutal.” She’s chuckling, but Elia can hear the gruff chortle of indignation in her voice. Lyanna rubs the back of her neck, tank top strap shrugging off her shoulder. There’s a smear of charcoal dust along her collarbone.

“I’m sorry, it was wrong of me to assume anything about you,” Elia’s stomach clenches. “And to come here, but I honestly can’t do anything for you. I—“

Lyanna waves her off, turning back to the easel.

“Those are gorgeous, I meant that.” She’s ignored. “Could I commission a piece?”

Lyanna’s profile is backlit by the sun, which floods in through the studio windows. The light strikes the side of her face. Elia can see her smirking. “Of you? Uh, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I only do nudes, love.”

It's spoken like a challenge. Or that's how Elia interpretes it.

Elia braces herself, glances at her watch, and dares herself to be stupendously brazen. There is something so infuriating about this girl that makes Elia feel so inadequate. And yet she wants to impress her. “I’ve got two hours, is that feasible?”

Lyanna’s fingers still upon the canvas. “Excuse me?”

“Two hours. What do you charge?” Elia begins unbuttoning her blouse. She slips from her heels. The silky material of her blouse leaves her shoulders and falls down her arms before pooling at her ankles. The pencil skirt soon follows. Left in her bra and underwear, Elia is burning with too much adrenaline to feel cold.

“For you, love?” Her fingers tangle momentarily with the clasp of her bra, but it unhooks. She retires her underwear to the floor as well. Lyanna leans forward on the stool, blowing out a hefty puff of smoke. Elia can see down her shirt. “Nothing much at all.”


	2. resolution

There was nothing seductive about the way Elia removed her clothes—it was purely methodical, yet Lyanna followed her procedure with a close cutting stare. It stung—burned its way into her as Elia walked to the mattress on the floor a few paces from the easel.

“Where would you like me?”

Lyanna’s grin is hidden behind the canvas she has perched on the easel, but it’s a secretive, filthy thing. She stabs the butt of the cigarette into an ashtray by her feet with steady fingers, yet her eyes are ignited by livewires, something carnivorous and brutal struck like kindling beneath her eyelids. She drags her gaze over the top of the canvas, hungry—yet patient—regarding Elia with an artist’s assessment.

She wishes to rattle off a list of suggestive positions, yet she refrains. “Wherever you’d like. Whatever feels good.”

Elia removes her hair from its bun. A short burst of jet black curls quivers along the angular line of her jaw. She rumples one side before propping herself up on the edge of the mattress. It squeaks beneath her modest weight, and Elia rolls her shoulders, preparing herself for two hours of motionless cramping.

Elia sits cross-legged and leans backwards on the bed, breasts uncovered. There is a regality in the way she holds herself. By all accounts, she should be more reserved with her body, more conservative in her pose, yet it feels comfortable to Elia. Some stubborn reflex refuses to allow her to cover herself for Lyanna. She would bare herself to this girl and not be ashamed.

Goosebumps tingle up her arms and chest, stiffening her nipples, and she can see Lyanna watching from behind the easel.

“This work for you?”

“Hmm.” Lyanna’s mouth twists in affirmation.

The silence that grows between them is tinged with moments of such intimacy, Elia feels her insides retracting, curling upon themselves. She isn’t used to feeling so exposed, physically or otherwise. Every time Lyanna’s studious glare buffers from her work and she looks to Elia, there is a feeling so raw and uninhibited; Elia feels childlike in her vulnerability. She has allowed another person to look upon her without reservations, to focus on what she is, blatantly, and it frightens her. She is worried that Lyanna will see something she has erred in concealing, see some ugly, baser part of herself. Maybe the part of her that Rhaegar strayed from, that made him turn away.

The cigarette butts that pile in the ashtray beside Lyanna’s chair mark the passing of time. The stench of tobacco fills the studio, perfuming Elia’s hair so that every time she rustles on the bed, a whiff of smoke comes off her like dust. The cigarette hangs limp from Lyanna’s mouth as she works, ash dripping from the end. Whenever her mouth is bereft a fag, Elia can see the girl’s tongue prodding prodigiously at her lip ring.

Lyanna varies her positions on the stool from which she works. Elia memorizes her movements for lack of entertainment. She straddles the seat, bowlegged, crouched on the bars linking the feet of the stool as she leans forward, fingers dancing upon the canvas. Her face is flushed with concentration, the pink in her cheeks visible even through the film of smoke surrounding her post. Lyanna then straightens and tightens her back, writhing her body atop its roost to relax the tension binding her muscles. The easel reaches from her neck to her abdomen, revealing her bare legs as they squirm.

Elia knows Lyanna is completely unaware of her movements and can see the focus etched on her face. The twitches become an endearing feature for Elia to watch, and she finds herself smiling whenever they occur.

“Alright,” Lyanna sighs from between drags. “We can take a break. My back’s aching like a bitch.”

The return of sound to the studio is abrupt and Elia feels a bit shaken.

She stands like a fawn from her position on the mattress—legs trembling, knees tender as they maneuver her weight—and walks on pins and needles to where Lyanna stands behind the easel.

“Here,” Lyanna tosses her a thin bathrobe crumpled on the floor beside the stool. Elia murmurs her thanks.

Elia pauses. “May I?”

Lyanna sucks one last dying breath from the stub of her umpteenth cigarette and bends down to bash the butt in the ashtray.

She pulls her body from the stool top and steps back for Elia, blowing a trail of smoke in her wake.

Slipping into the robe, Elia blinks away the dry irritation from her eyes and moves to occupy the space Lyanna just inhabited. She can feel the warm splotches of concrete where the other girl’s feet had stood.

Elia brings a hand to her mouth. _Gods_ , she thinks.

As in life, Elia is posed on the bed, all the lines of her body smooth and prominent. She is striking the way she yielded herself to Lyanna’s hand, chest poised and lifted, breasts curved and taut, bathed in hues of light. Her head is turned aside atop a slender neck, the line of her throat extended. The bed isn’t finished and fades into lines and various shades of grey, but there is no mistaking Elia as anything but the epicenter.

Lyanna snorts, “I’ve only been at it for an hour and… _forty-two minutes_ … give me a break, love.”

“No, no,” Elia mutters from between her fingers, embarrassed to have spoken her thoughts audibly. “It’s beautiful, truly.”

She looks over her shoulder to see Lyanna stretching, on her toes, arms over her head, bending backwards. She yawns and shivers. The tank top peels from her belly and scrunches at her chest. Her tattoos slink across the skin of her ribs and hip, and Elia scours the expanse of naked skin with a critical eye.

“When did you get those?” She nods to the wilting flowers spread up Lyanna’s side.

Lyanna musses up her hair, mouth puckered in a jaunty purse. “Hm? Oh—the roses I got when I was seventeen,” Elia’s brow quirks. “Yeah, yeah, feckless, stupid. How _typically teenage_ of me. I got my ears chewed off by my brothers and dad for that one. But I had a fling with this artist—worked at a parlor in town up north where we lived. She offered me half price. Luckily she finished before kicking my ass to the curb or I would’ve had to scrounge for change to get it finished.”

“Do you regret them?”

Lyanna steps off her tiptoes and rubs her jaw. “Nah. I still love ‘em. I mean, sometimes they remind me of the lass who did them… that’s always a bit rough, but they weren’t done on a whim. They mean something to me.”

There’s no sash on the robe, so Elia tucks it loosely around her waist, cupping the worn material in her palm. She waits for Lyanna to continue.

“My mum died when my youngest brother was born. She was into gardening and such,” Lyanna shrugs her shoulders, hand stroking across her ribs absentmindedly. “We had a greenhouse and I used to help her sometimes. The winter roses were her favorite. Here,” Lyanna lifts up her tank top, the advertisement for the burlesque show crumpling as the fabric compresses in Lyanna hand. Elia steps closer to inspect.

The roses are scrawled in delicate, fragile lines. As Lyanna tilts her body to make viewing easier, Elia can count the framework of her ribs beneath the dark furrows of ink. Elia bends forward, fingers tentatively reaching out to trace the pretty craftsmanship. Lyanna’s abdomen tightens at Elia’s contact and she shrinks back. “No, you’re fine,” Lyanna says. She wraps her fingers around Elia’s and drags them back to her side. “Go ahead,” her voice is low.

Elia feels the heat radiating from Lyanna’s skin as she tracks the stems of the flowers, winding the pads of her fingers up to the dying petals—large and clinging to magnificence as they wither.

Elia’s movement stills and she hears the other girl’s breath, watches as the air rises and falls under all the muscle and skin beneath her hand.

“The detail’s exquisite. Whoever she was, she did a lovely job.” There are charcoal prints creeping along her wrist and palm from where Lyanna had grabbed her. Elia tries rubbing the dark smudges off but that only furthers their expansion.

“Sorry, my bad,” Lyanna lets the tank top fall back down. “Here—this helps.”

Elia’s mouth utters some sort of sound, a brief protestation, before falling slack.

She watches as Lyanna brings the flat of her palm to her mouth, lips pressing flush against her skin. She sucks lightly at the blotch of charcoal, tongue wet and hot. Elia bites her cheek and her eyelids flutter. The air is cool on the dampness of her palm.

Lyanna bends her fingers straight and Elia watches as she presses one finger to her lips. They’re parted and warm, Lyanna’s breath is hot and coarse.

She eyes Elia with heavy lids and drags the tip of her finger into her mouth, teeth grazing skin and tongue flickering rough and slick.

Elia’s throat struggles to swallow. It feels as if her heart’s clogging her windpipe.

Audacity was a trait that preferred to skip her in the gene pool of her family. Her brothers, even Doran, were bold men—Oberyn wouldn’t let a day pass him by without doing something ridiculously reckless. Yet, Elia managed herself with a calm, practiced air.

Lyanna Stark managed to tarnish that previously established disposition all in the course of a morning.

Elia had stripped down to her skin for this girl, had been her subject, and now….

Lyanna’s neck tightens beneath Elia’s mouth and a strangled groan escapes her lips.

Elia allows the robe to fall open, and presses herself flush against Lyanna, feeling the abrasive texture of her underwear against her hip. The girl’s dust stained hands are on her waist with expedience, latching onto her lower back, trailing sultry courses across her skin. Elia’s fingers wind their way through Lyanna’s knotted bun, nails scraping into her scalp, earning her a hitching of breath.

Elia’s other hand slips under the waistband of Lyanna’s underwear, toying with the lacy fabric. Lyanna rolls her hips in response to Elia’s teasing. She brushes the robe off Elia’s shoulder, tugging it with force. They break momentarily, damp and blushing, to remove their remaining articles of clothing. Lyanna flings her tank top to the floor, grabbing Elia’s waist and cupping the back of her neck. She tastes like cigarettes, musty remnants of tobacco saturated on her lips, and Elia tugs and nips at her ring.

Lyanna swears against her mouth—“ _Fuck._ ”—with a whine.

Elia runs her fingers up Lyanna’s thighs, picking at the black lace. “Get them off,” Lyanna growls. Elia grabs and yanks the material and it rips without much protest.

Lyanna’s teeth taunt the skin of her jaw. Elia shivers when she feels the other girl’s ragged breath against her ear. “You ever been with a girl before?” Elia shakes her head, heart lurching and pounding so hard against her chest it’s nearly painful. “You wanna try it out?” Lyanna voice is rough, yet her hands have slowed on Elia’s skin.

Elia nods, her jaw rubbing slick against Lyanna’s cheek.

“No, love—I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes, yes,” Elia breathes, strung out and eager. “Please, yes.”

Lyanna grins and Elia feels it on her lips when they kiss.

This was better than what Rhaegar had given her, she’d never felt so desperate and wanting with him, only a specific kind of satisfaction knowing everyone had wanted him, yet she was his wife.

She is lead by the hips to the mattress on the floor. Lyanna gives her a gentle shove down and Elia keenly observes from the bed as Lyanna removes her hair from its bun. It tumbles, soft and dark, across her shoulder and Lyanna pushes it from her face.

Lyanna remains standing for Elia’s benefit. She allows the elder women to study her as she herself had been studied.

Something hot and thick spreads through Elia as she rigorously cartographs the form of Lyanna’s body: the masculine slope of her shoulders, the arch of her breasts, the dark thatch of hair at the apex between her thighs. Dusty marks of charcoal are scattered like bruises pressed by needy, shaking fingers into her skin.

Elia appraises her, this girl before her—watching her as if she’s a portrait from the Age of Heroes, existing precariously in the modern world so that people could marvel over how revolutionary she was, daring to live in a world of conquerors.

Lyanna steps onto the mattress and lowers herself atop Elia.

The heat between them convulses and hums like hot asphalt and Elia hisses as Lyanna grinds their bodies together. Elia bends on the mattress to meet her and can feel Lyanna’s husky laughter vibrating along her collarbone as she sucks sweet plums on her skin.

Lyanna straddles her thighs, dragging her mouth in a slow, agonizing trajectory to Elia’s breasts. Lyanna teases the stiff peak of her nipples with her tongue, forcing Elia’s back into a tight, fraught arch, as she clenches her jaw, cutting off the groans burning up her throat.

“ _Damn you_ ,” Elia curses, and Lyanna jerks her hips. The friction gives Elia little comfort, but she knows it’s intentional. “Fucking tease.” Elia drags her nails down Lyanna’s spine, the muscles of her fingers tight and shaking. Sweat collects between her shoulder blades and Lyanna pressures her cunt into Elia’s thigh, inhaling sharply at the friction.

Lyanna hums, one hand kneading into Elia’s breast, the other delving into the hair between her legs.

“Yes—please, please.” Elia urges, knocking her head back on to the bed, shutting her eyes. She scratches at the mattress, searching for release. Lyanna’s thumb presses, painfully slow, into Elia’s clit. She begins her ministrations with a tender diligence, rubbing gradually, allowing Elia’s body to find a rhythm with her strokes.

Once Elia captures Lyanna’s pace, undulating her hips with fervor, she feels herself start to shake. Lyanna senses Elia’s progression and leans forward, pressuring Elia down into the mattress with her palm. Elia bucks her thigh up and hears Lyanna gasp. She keens sharply between her teeth and can feel Lyanna gyrating the wetness of her cunt into her thigh. The girl’s fingers, the ones not attending to Elia, travel from her own breast down to the rippling muscles of her abdomen.

Elia watches, writhing in the sheets, one hand griping Lyanna’s thigh, as she reaches down and begins to tease herself. Dark hair falls with abandon into her face and Lyanna makes no move to displace the messy locks. Her lips hang, red and raw, suspended in the shock of desire—the pursuit of it—and Elia can think of nothing so beautiful.

Sweat drips from between her breasts and her cheeks are stained the most provocative shade of pink; Elia comes watching Lyanna chase her pleasure, a sigh on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, I'm sorry if the smut was disappointing. It was so condensed, I wish I had written it longer... I find myself really wanting to read certain things but when it comes to writing them I always feel like they fall short.
> 
> So...? 
> 
> I hope they weren't ooc, I tried to write them as I thought they would be in this modern au, but I'm never completely certain how they're going to turn out at the end of it.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> This is split into two parts, I figured it would just be smoother that way. 
> 
> Hope it was enjoyable? 
> 
> The pairing never even occurred to me before, but I really liked the idea of Elia and Lyanna sorta flipping Rhaegar off because who likes that bastard anyways? 
> 
> I'll be posting part two shortly! Thanks! 
> 
> (Title from The 1975 song "Sex")


End file.
